Random thoughts on the blue highways.
You never know what you will find on the blue highways. Particularly when the choice at an intersection is controlled by the roll of a die. About the only rule is that highway onramps don't count as an intersection. You don't even have to roll the die. If one road looks interesting, go for it.

About Me

Don't look for me much on the big news sites, I skim through them, but rarely find much that is worth commenting on. As a young son once said "We don't watch TV news, dad won't let us watch violence programs." I still don't.
Interests are religion, marketing theory (that is not an oxymoron,) Advertizing, digital photography, APOD, and historically, rocket science.
e-mail: jcarlinbl@gmail.com
The literary version is found at Thinking On the Blue Roads
The raw data for which can be found on The Blue Roads of Thinking.

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Evolutionary
models explain how humans evolved social brains that were optimal for
conformity to group norms, and that means they will adopt whatever
ideas, rituals, art, attitudes, etc. that identifies tribal association.
That's why someone from Denver is more likely to wear a Broncos jersey
rather than people living in othe cities with their own football team.
Or why people in the USA are more likely to be some form of Christian
and people in the Middle East more likely to be Muslim. People
affiliate and then defend affiliation for various reasons, but most
certainly involves a degree of denial. F1fan

How
do you determine which group norms are untrue? If one gains social
status (in Denver) from arguing that John Elway, or whomever is the
greatest Quarterback in the religion of the NFL is this denial that
there may be other quarterbacks that may be in the running? Is it a
false belief? Is it a disfunctional belief in Denver? Do you think a
Bart Starr fan store selling nothing but Packer and Starr paraphernalia
would be successful in Denver?

Is
your belief that there is no guiding force behind evolution necessarily
true? Does a plurality of Gods indicate that there must be none or
"One ring to rule them all" including the god of unguided evolution?

Perhaps
the human brain evolved to conform to group norms and accept those
group norms as true, since arguing the falsity of group norms carries
social penalties up to and including death by torture. Including
arguing against secular beliefs.

Atheists
still are subject to social sanctions for arguing against the
prevailing religious beliefs of a country or state. Does this mean
atheism is false? Does it mean atheism is true?

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

In
my opinion, preaching the innate superiority of Western European
Protestant Culture as he is doing skirts very close to fascism.amcolph

You
realise that you are insulting the majority of atheists who post here,
amcolph? For them, morality is mere fashion, and Twenty-First Century
Western Liberal Culture (which is a not-very-developed development of
"Western European Protestant Culture") is the zeitgeist which
molds their fashion, so it must be "superior". Thus, for example, they
frown on slavery because Western Liberal Culture considers slavery to be
"bad"; but in the rest of the world, slavery is the norm. Thus, again,
they consider women to be full members of society, equal to men; but in
the rest of the world, women are chattels of men.Lavengro

The
morality of many of the atheists who post here is humanism which is
complete and utter repudiation of the elitist "Western European
Protestant Culture" (WEPC). The WEPC is being dragged, kicking and
screaming, to a more humanistic morality.

Humanists
oppose slavery, all forms including wage slavery, as slavery only
benefits the fascist elite and the syncophant WEPC priests/preachers/pastors/vuvuzelas who provide God's moral blessing on the
fascist elite in exchange for a tithe. But as one of the elite warns,
the pitchforks are coming. Here as well as the rest of the world. In
the immortal Janis Joplin line "Freedom's just another word for nothin'
left to lose."

The rest
of the world is finding out that women as chattels of men is not working
too well as women gain control over their fertility. Hobby Lobby
notwithstanding. That minimum wage slavery is easy to buy into and an
independent nuliparous woman can use it as a springboard to personal
fulfillment while working men's egos for pleasure and additional support
without a care about hosting some prick's seed. She may choose to do
so but the choice is hers in the US as well as India, China, and much of
the western world. So much for WEPC misogyny.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

beliefnet I have an extremely rational and objective
basis for my morality. It started at 2 or 3 when I was taught not to
hurt other friends even accidentally because they would avoid me in the
future and I would have no friends to play with. Simple, rational,
objective, social consequence based morality. As I got older the definition of hurt and responsible behavior that defined the
morality became more complex and stringent, but it was very simple. If
you want to play in this society you must be responsible for your
behavior and avoid hurting the people who are part of it. The society which I choose to identify as my own is the society of highly educated, intelligent, cosmopolitans. The definition of hurt includes the treatment of any other person as a lesser being, to be exploited or used in any way that is detrimental to their own interests.